The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect.

Everything is very quiet, the streets are never crowded, and the people one dislikes are out of town.

Meeting people unlike oneself does not enlarge one's outlook; it only confirms one's idea that one is unique.

the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.

Mr. [Aldous] Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch party. Whatever will he say next? How does he think of those things? He has been deplored once or twice, but feeling is in his favor: he is steadily read. He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person's idea of the clever person; he is expected to be relentless, to administer intellectual shocks.

The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.

Someone soon to start on a journey is always a little holy.